Hamilton returns to roots

CINCINNATI Josh Hamilton took a cab on Monday morning to get to the ballgame and return to the beginning, his big-league beginning, when he started to do more right in baseball than wrong out of it.

It was almost six years ago to the day, April 2, 2007, when the Angels slugger made his major-league debut on opening day at Great American Ball Park as an eighth-inning pinch-hitter for the Cincinnati Reds.

Hamilton was 25 then. He wore No. 33, not 32. He was the Reds' fourth outfielder, a $100,000 pickup out of the 2006 Rule 5 draft and a reclamation project who never played a day above Class A.

But the Reds fans became his fans immediately, welcoming him to the plate with a 22-second standing ovation. They backed him for the recovery he was making as a man, not as a ballplayer, one-time can't-miss prospect and 1999 first overall pick who nearly lost everything to booze and crack.

“It was cool because I had never done anything baseball-wise in that town but people there knew my story,” recalled Hamilton about the crowd's reaction for his first big-league plate appearance.

“They got that it was a miracle that I was not only alive but able to be there in that moment.”

On Monday afternoon, Hamilton, 31, made his Angels debut in the same town where he played that first season of baseball salvation.

Many in the bundled-up crowd of 43,168 warmly cheered the visiting Angel during player introductions (while reserving the bass-throated boos for former Cardinal-foe-turned-Angels-first-baseman Albert Pujols).

He went 0 for 4 with two walks in the Angels' 3-1 extra-innings victory. He drew a walk off J.J. Hoover in the 13th inning, then came home for the winning run on Chris Iannetta's line drive.

“(Cincinnati) is always going to hold a special place in my heart,” said Hamilton. “This was where I had all the firsts in my career.”

He still vividly remembers his first career at-bat. He lined out to left-center field against the Chicago Cubs and heard the applause following him as he jogged back into the dugout.

His first start as a Reds left fielder came April 10, 2007, at Arizona. He batted leadoff and collected his first hit: a two-run home run off Edgar Gonzalez.

While with the Reds, Hamilton laid the foundation for the support system that has helped prevent all but two publicized alcohol relapses in the past seven years.

He began traveling everywhere with an “accountability coach,” Johnny Narron, whom Hamilton had known since childhood in Raleigh, N.C. Narron, who was hired as an assistant coach with the Reds and later with the Rangers, had that role for five years (2007-11) before becoming the Brewers' hitting coach.

Hamilton's wife, Katie, also “had her first season of getting used to being a baseball wife and mom dealing with the travel, the kids and me being away on the road.”

Looking back, Hamilton didn't know where the next six years would lead. He couldn't have guessed that he'd bat .292 with 19 home runs and 47 RBI in 90 games as a rookie.

He couldn't have predicted that the Reds would trade him after a year to the Texas Rangers for pitcher Edinson Volquez. He couldn't have known that he would play five Rangers season, become a five-time All-Star and 2010 AL MVP and reach two World Series.

“I always have people come up and say, ‘I wish you were still in Cincinnati,' ” Hamilton said.

“I always pick at them and say, ‘Then, why did you trade me?' ”

He couldn't have guessed that he would become a 2013 Angel with a $125 million deal and a season-opening trip through Cincinnati and Arlington, Texas.

“I always say that the Lord brings me back to where he brought me from,” Hamilton said before Monday's game.

He is grateful that the Reds took a chance on him after nearly a four-year absence from baseball. He had been thinking about all the firsts he had already experienced here. Then in the game, he added a few more.

His first highlight catch as an Angel came as he made a diving grab on a low-flying Ryan Hanigan line drive to end the seventh inning.

In his first at-bat as an Angel, Hamilton lined out to center field on Johnny Cueto's first-pitch changeup in the second inning.

With his second at-bat came a pop out in foul territory; his third, a seventh-inning walk; his fourth, a ninth-inning called strikeout by Aroldis Chapman; his fifth, an 11th-inning bouncer and groundout to pitcher Sam LeCure; and his sixth; a 13th-inning walk that led to the winning run.

“We made history,” Hamilton said after baseball's first opening-day interleague game, which happened to last four hours and 45 minutes.

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